


o'er many a frozen, many a fiery alp

by septmars



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asriel as A Single Father, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21718927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/septmars/pseuds/septmars
Summary: Lord Asriel, faced with no other choice, takes Lyra north with him.
Relationships: Lord Asriel & Lyra Belacqua
Comments: 17
Kudos: 105
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	o'er many a frozen, many a fiery alp

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hernameinthesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hernameinthesky/gifts).



The first complication arose as they refueled in Edinbrugh. Lyra had woken up after sleeping all the way from London, and promptly cried. Thorold made milk using boiled water and the powder the girl gave them, but Lyra refused to drink it. She just cried and cried until Asriel could not stand her anymore.

“Damn you, Thorold! Shut her up, I can’t focus!” Asriel roared, slamming his cartographic equipment on the table.

“I’m trying, my lord. The little lady won’t drink her milk,” Thorold replied. In a vain attempt to calm Lyra down, he had begun bouncing her on his knee, but still she cried.

“She’s a  _ baby _ , you’re supposed to know how to calm her!”

“My lord, I trained as a manservant, not a nurse,” Thorold said, with dignity. Anfang pawed at Pantalaimon, who had taken the form of a chirping chick to better advertise his distress.

Lord Asriel heaved a big sigh. If they didn’t fly in an hour, they would miss the west wind and would have to wait until tomorrow to cross the North Sea. With the Magisterium hot on their heels, they could not afford any delays.

“Give her and the milk to me,” Asriel said.

With some difficulty, Asriel balanced Lyra in one hand while holding the hot bottle with his other. Instantly, he knew why Lyra hadn’t taken to the milk.

“Are you out of your mind, Thorold? No wonder she wouldn’t drink it. This milk is damned too hot!”

“Sire, I boiled the water like I usually do when making tea—”

“A baby’s milk is different from making tea or coffee, you fool. They can’t stand heat as well as us. Use lukewarm water, there’s some left in the thermos. And test it by dropping some on your skin. Make sure it’s not hot, but not cold.”

Following his master’s order, Thorold made another bottle of milk using the water left in the thermos. Asriel fed it carefully to his daughter. Lyra immediately took to this new bottle, true to his word. She held Asriel’s eyes as she drank, her tiny hands grasping at the air. Asriel couldn’t help but smile. She was cute when she wasn’t trying to ruin his eardrums.

After finishing her milk, Lyra gurgled and giggled, happy now that her belly’s full. Now that she was sated, Pantalaimon changed into a purring kitten. Stelmaria gave him a big lick.

Thorold observed his master and his new mistress with a smile. “We should find a nurse for the little lady once we land, my lord,” he said.

“What woman would want to follow us to the North?”

“We could leave her with the nurse—”

“And let Marisa have her at the first opportunity?” Asriel snapped. “No. It’s still far too dangerous for her to be alone. We must keep her with us.”

“Neither of us have any experience in raising a baby, my lord,” Thorold said, mildly.

“The witches. She’s a girl, she’s allowed to be with them. Serafina Pekkala will keep her safe. Until we arrive at Enara—” Asriel touched Lyra’s cheek. “I suppose we have to make do.”

As if taking up Asriel on his offer, a foul smell began emanating from Lyra. Asriel felt something warm soaking his clothes, and cursed.

“Thorold!” he barked as Lyra began to cry again. “The damned thing just pissed on me!”

—

Few things surprised Serafina Pekkala. She’d lived a long life, had seen all the good and bad mankind had to offer.

Yet she was still taken aback when Lord Asriel arrived at her homeland with a baby in his arms.

“My daughter, Lyra,” he said, thrusting the baby to her arms. “Keep her safe.”

Serafina looked at the sleeping babe—a girl, she can tell at first glance—and then the man before her.

“No,” she said, giving the baby back to her father.

“But she’s a girl!” Lord Asriel protested. “She could live in your clan. I’ll visit her from time to time.”

Serafina hook her head. “Only witches can live in our clan, and magic passes from mother to daughter. Though she’s a girl, no magic flows in her blood. She cannot stay. It is impossible.”

“She’s the girl in your prophecy. Surely you can make an exception for her.”

“All the more reason we cannot keep her.” Serafina glared at him with her vivid green eyes. That gaze would make most men quake, but Lord Asriel was not like any other men. He stood firm and replied with a gaze as pitiless as her own.

“Her whole destiny is dependent on her ignorance,” Serafina Pekkala continued. “If she lives with us, she’s in great risk of discovering the prophecy.”

Lord Asriel was silent for a moment. His eyebrows scrunched. He seemed to be weighing something.

“I have no experience in childcare,” he finally said. “Neither does Thorold. How can you expect us to take care of a baby? In the North besides?”

Serafina smiled. Lord Asriel wasn’t a man used to asking for help, or admitting that he may lack in certain things.

“We’ll teach you how to take care of the girl, but we can do no further,” Serafina said.

Asriel nodded. “Better than nothing.”

She called upon her clan. They were happy to see the baby, doted on her really. They gave her woolen blankets, bearskin coats and deerskin dresses in various sizes (babies grow quickly, Serafina told Asriel), flannel diapers, toys made from pine and birch, and even teethers made of soft leather and reindeer gelatin. An experienced matron who had given birth to five daughters taught Lord Asriel’s servant how to swaddle the baby, properly carry her on his back and on his chest, change her diaper, bathe her, make her milk, and all things necessary to take care of an infant.

By the time they were finished, Serafina was almost sorry to see them go.

“Keep her safe,” Serafina said to Lord Asriel. “She’s special.”

“Everyone’s special,” Lord Asriel had replied. Nevertheless, he clutched his daughter closer to his chest.

—

Lyra was four when they returned to London.

Going back was something Asriel had thought about carefully. The North was in some ways safer than Brytain. The Magisterium’s reach was weaker and the wide expanses meant there were little nooks for a kidnapper to hide. All there were to fear was the animals and the harsh landscape. In London the Magisterium was everywhere in the narrow alleys and packed buildings.

Yet he had done all that he could in the North. He had regained the family fortune that he lost on that Coulter business. He had made extensive monographs about the various northern kingdom and societies. And his research was stuck, unless he went back to Jordan, picked at the mind of the Scholars and the Master. He had to return.

But he could not leave Lyra so far away with few allies to protect her. The Magisterium might be weaker, but they had influence still. The safest place for her was by his side. With the money he earned in the North, he could restore October House to its former appointment, bought more security, hired servants too expensive to be bribed.

Still, he had his doubts. Sitting by the fireplace, he nursed a glass of Tokay, looking at the Alethiometer that had come with Lyra during the Great Flood. His fingers caressed the soft velvet cover.

“You were always bad at using that thing,” Stelmaria said from her place at the rug.

“I know how to ask basic questions,” Asriel retorted.

“Like ‘is it safe to bring Lyra back to London?’”

“I just want to be sure.” Asriel poured some more Tokay to his glass. “Is that so bad?”

“You were always one to take some risk.” Stelmaria licked her paws. “She’ll always be in danger, be it here or in Brytain. If you can take her to a Tartar war-camp, you can take her to London.”

“But there’s the Magisterium. And Marisa.”

“So, we’ll fight them like we always do.” Stelmaria gazed at him with her big feline eyes. “And we’ll win, like we always do.”

Asriel chuckled. “You’re right, of course you’re right.” He glanced at the Alethiometer, and pocketed it back. “We don’t need this.”

So Asriel had called Thorold to pack their things and in a few days, they landed in London for the first time in years. Lyra had immediately taken to it. There weren’t any cities comparable to London in the north and Lyra was fascinated by the airships roaming the skies, the gyptian houseboats meandering down the Thames, the cars on the street, and even the people, who all wore lighter and brighter coats.

Lyra had asked to be carried on his shoulders, so he carried her until they arrived in October House. The servants waiting for them at the front door looked scandalized. Asriel was amused.

“This is my daughter Lyra, Mrs Clydes,” he said to the housekeeper. “Her mother died, and she had no one to take care of her, so I took her in. Give her a bath, will you? It’s been a long trip for the both of us.”

“Certainly, my lord,” Mrs Clydes squeaked, not expecting to be handed a toddler by her master as soon as he arrived. Her terrier daemon was jumping up and down, trying to see Lyra.

Lyra squirmed in Mrs Clydes’ grasp, Pan turning into an agitated little bird. “No! No!” she cried. “I want Dad! Just Dad!”

“Be a good girl, Lyra, and listen to Mrs Clydes.” Asriel tweaked at her nose. “I have work to do. I’ll be back for your bedtime story.”

He’d almost forgotten just how  _ busy  _ life was in London. In the Arctic, it was mostly the three of them in their cottage, with occasional trips to town and other research camps. But in London he had so much to do: attending social calls; organizing meetings; sitting at sessions in the House of Lords; speaking at seminars. He had become quite a celebrity during his absence. The tabloids had a field day with the Belacqua-Coulter scandal and was enthralled by his triumphant return from disgrace. Everyone was eager to meet him.

He capitalized on the interests to the best that he could, eager to secure support for his next expedition. The only constraint on his busy schedule was Lyra. By 8 p.m., he had to tuck her to bed, or she would be up screaming the house down. He’d found this quirk the hard way when, on their first day in London, he’d come home quite late and was greeted by a harried Thorold trying to soothe a furiously crying Lyra. She wouldn’t go to bed until her Dad came home to read her a bedtime story, Thorold had said, and nothing could calm her down. 

The bedtime story had begun when a raging snowstorm had scared Lyra so much that she kept crying all night until finally Asriel, exasperated by all the noise, went to his daughter’s bedside and read her a story. Lyra immediately calmed down and went to sleep soon after. Since then, whenever she couldn’t sleep, Asriel read her a story. Sometimes it would be an actual fairy tale that he knew from childhood or invented from thin air, often it would be his research reports or an article he was writing; there wasn’t any difference, she’d go to sleep either way.

It had been convenient and easy method when Lyra was occasionally being difficult in the Arctic. But in London, it had become a daily occurence that it started to chafe at Asriel. He had so many things to do; he couldn’t abandon his work by 8 p.m. every day just to soothe a crying child. 

One day, he resolved to speak to Lyra about it. After he laid her gently on her bed, Asriel took a seat beside her.

“Lyra, you must not act like this,” he said gravely to the toddler. “I have many things to do; I can’t read you a bedtime story every day.”

“No! You promised!” Lyra shook her head.

“Yes, I promised, but not every day.” Asriel smoothed away Lyra’s hair. It was blonde, like his. “Thorold can read you a bedtime story when I’m not here.”

“I don’t want Thorold! I only want you!”

“Lyra, stop being difficult! Why are you acting up now?”

“I don’t like London, it’s loud and hot and there are too many people.” Lyra grabbed at his sleeves. “When are we coming back home?”

“Home? This  _ is  _ our home, Lyra.”

“No, our home is in the north, Dad,” Lyra said slowly, as if he was a particularly dense child. “This is in the south.”

“Lyra, I grew up in this place. Thorold too. In fact, the bed you’re sleeping in right now was mine, when I was your age. And now it's yours.” He tweaked at Lyra’s nose. She’d inherited most of her looks from him, except for her nose. That was all Marisa’s.

Lyra scowled. But she was warming up to the idea, he could tell. Smiling, he patted Lyra’s head. Stelmaria nuzzled Pan.

“I’ll be reading you bedtime stories every day next week,” Asriel said. “But after that, weekends only. You must be brave and go to bed without me, alright?”

“Alright,” his daughter said, and did as she's told.

━

Thorold marveled at how fast the little lady was growing. He remembered when she was a wee baby, plucked by his master from that awful flood, and the next thing he knew, she was already running around the place with her Pan at her side.

Privately, Thorold wished the little lady had a more normal childhood. The North wasn’t a place for a child, much less a girl. He had asked his master many times to leave her at October House in the care of Mrs Clydes to be raised like any proper Brytish girl, but his master refused. He wouldn’t part with the little lady, always fearing that the Magisterium was out to get her. He took her everywhere: to London; to Oxford; to Cairo; to Kristiania; to his research post in the Arctic wasteland. The little lady had grown up amongst scientific equipment and Tatars and Pomor hunters and experimental theologians with scarcely children for playmates. It worried Thorold greatly.

But as far as Thorold could see, the little lady grew up well despite her unconventional upbringing. She still acted very much like a child, scampering around the cottage, pestering her father for attention. Whenever they meet children her age, she was not shy or awkward. In fact, she’d quickly press them into her mischief, acting as a gang-leader. Of course, it was up to Thorold to clean up the mess they’d leave afterwards, but he was secretly relieved that her little lady had all the curiosity and energy every well-brought up child ought to have.

If there were any areas her unusual situation left a mark, it was probably her education. Whenever they were in Brytain, Lord Asriel would hire tutors for her and when they were travelling, he would personally oversee her lessons with the help of Thorold. But although Lord Asriel was an extremely intelligent man, he was busy, and no expert in pedagogy. He’d taught Lyra things that interested him, so Lyra knew about cosmology more than any eight-year-old, but she didn’t know about photosynthesis, because Lord Asriel disliked biology. Thorold had tried to fill in the gaps in her knowledge as best as he could, but he was not a particularly learned man. Mrs Clydes bemoaned Lyra’s manners, or lack of it, but she was highborn; she could afford to be rude. It wasn’t as if Lord Asriel was particularly polite either. 

Well, considering everything, Thorold could take joy in how happy his little lady was. When her father was working in the cabin, she liked to accompany Thorold on his trip to the market, watching him haggle with the traders, choosing what food to buy, charming the market ladies into giving her sweets. Sometimes, she’d help with the haggling or tried to help him carry things, though he always forbid her doing the latter. It was not proper work for a girl like her. 

This time, though, she was uncharacteristically quiet, her daemon a little mouse hiding in her coat. Thorold looked over at her.

“What’s the matter, miss?” he asked her.

“Oh, no, nothing at all, Thorold.” Lyra picked an apple and was scrutinizing it intently. Pantalaimon squeaked as Anfang tried to coax him out. 

“Don’t lie to me, miss. I know when you’re feeling down. Now,” he said, crouching so they were eye-level, “what’s bothering you?”

Lyra shuffled her feet, unusually shy. She said, “Thorold, what was my mother like?”

Thorold stilled. Ice settled on his stomach. Anfang whimpered, ears cast down. In some ways, he’d anticipated this question. He’d know that one day the little miss would want to know more about her mother. Lord Asriel told him to tell her that that her mother was a Laplander woman who died soon after her birth, but nothing beyond that. Besides, the little miss never showed any curiosity about her mother; she knew that she was dead, but she never asked anything about her. Until now.

Lyra saw his expression and paled. 

“It’s not like I en’t happy with you and Dad,” she said hurriedly. “I am, I really am. I jus’ wanted to know what she was like. I don’t miss her or anything.”

“Your mother was very beautiful and very smart,” Thorold said, after some deliberations. That at least had been true.

“And?” Lyra prompted. “What else?”

Thorold didn’t have anything good to say about that Coulter woman. She was too sly and that awful golden monkey gave Anfang the shivers. And then when that terrible business happened, she had the chance to save Lord Asriel by testifying for his defense, but she didn’t. Instead she sat dispassionately at the backbenches as the judge stripped her lover of everything and gave her daughter up to strangers. Thinking about that trial still made his blood boil, even now. But he couldn’t say all of that to the little lady, it would just confuse her.

“Your father...he loved her very much. And...he was devastated when she died,” he said, quite lamely.

“Well, if he loves her so much,” she said, “why didn’t he marry her?”

“M-my lady?!” 

“I en’t stupid.” Lyra huffed. “I know he en’t married to her when I was born. That would make me a bastard, wouldn’t it?”

“A b-bastard?” Thorold sputtered, red in the face. “Where in the world did you learn such a word?”

“From the marconi plays Mrs Clydes and the housemaids and the market ladies love so much,” Lyra said innocently. “That’s what they call a child born out of marriage, right? A bastard. And that’s what I am, since my parents en’t married when I was born.”

Thorold could feel his head pounding. “Miss, you shouldn't listen to those marconi plays,” he said gently. “It en’t proper.”

“But I was right, wasn’t I?” Lyra demanded. “I’m a bastard?”

Oh, lord. He’s in a right pickle now.

“Miss, your mother’s people, them Laplanders, they en’t got an idea of marriage like us Brytish people do,” Thorold said. Yes. That sounded logical. “Your father and your mother, they may not be married in the Brytish way, but they were sure married in a Laplandic way. You have a birth certificate signed by the King of Lapland and everything. Can’t get that without being married.” 

Lyra looked at him critically, but after a few moments she seemed to accept his explanation. 

“I’m glad she en’t a fallen woman,” she said.

“A f-fallen woman?” Thorold’s eyes bulged. “You really ought to stop listening to those marconi plays, miss.”

Lyra laughed, grabbing an apple from the stand. Pantalaimon leapt from her pocket and turned into a terrier, finally taking up on Anfang's offer of chase. “But it’s so fun! It just got to the part where the bastard found out he was secretly related to his girl...”

That’s it. He was having some stern words with Mrs Clydes as soon as they got home to London.

—

Asriel knew bringing a child as young as Lyra to the Arctic Society was uncommon, but it was not prohibited. Everyone saw him as an enigma who brought his daughter with him on his research trips; introducing her to the Society was nothing in comparison.

Truthfully, he didn’t want to take her. Yet he knew, as Lyra grew up, she would need to learn how to behave. There were trappings of his class that even he could not avoid. Lyra would inherit them from him, and she would have to learn to navigate it deftly to have a secure future. This wasn’t something that he could have taught her in their travels. He would have to introduce her, little by little, to high society. The Arctic Society, filled with people who were largely of the same social class and had similar experience to them, was the logical first step.. 

Lyra was ecstatic, of course, when he told her he was going to take her to the Society. She’d considered herself as an unofficial Society member and were always pestering him to take her there. She was so happy that she’d let Mrs Clydes tie her hair with ribbons and put her in a dress with little grumbling. 

After she finished dressing up, Lyra made Asriel watch as she twirled and swayed from side to side. 

“Well?” she demanded. “How do I look?”

Asriel regarded his daughter. Mrs Clydes had dressed her in a dainty blue silk dress with lace collar, so unlike her usual clothes of utilitarian shirt and corduroy pants.

“You look good, Lyra," he said.

“I still don’t understand why I can’t wear my pants.” She tugged at her hair ribbons, but was stopped by Pantalaimon. For this occasion, he too had dressed up, taking the form of an elegant snow-white ermine.

“Young ladies shouldn’t wear pants outside of their homes,” Asriel said. He offered his arm to her.

Lyra took it. “You and Thorold wear pants all the time.”

“Thorold and I are neither young nor ladies.” Asriel tweaked at her nose. “Be a good girl or I wouldn’t take you again, alright?”

Predictably, Lyra was a success with the other members. Everyone knew of her, the little girl whom Lord Asriel couldn’t part with, but few people saw her. They buzzed around Lyra like bees, eager to test her knowledge. 

“So this is the Lyra that I’ve been hearing so much about!” Oskar Pankraz, a linguist from Heidelberg University, said. “I was told by your father that you speak Suomi.  _ Mitä kuuluu _ ?” 

“ _ Voin hyvin kiitos _ ,” she replied with perfect pronunciation. Oskar Pankraz clapped and his daemon meowed appreciatively.

Lyra smiled proudly. She liked the attention. The only place she could show off like this was when they were visiting Jordan College, where the Scholars treated her like an exotic object. On her travels, usually there were only Thorold and her father. And at October House, the servants were too used to her to be in awe of her skills and the servant children were too ignorant to appreciate her knowledge of the North. So when these elegant scientists and explorers asked her to pronounce _Северное сияние_ with the perfect accent or explain the basic cosmological components of the aurora borealis, she was more than happy to oblige them.

For his part, Asriel was also enjoying considerable attention as the doting father to a precocious child. How hard it must be to raise a motherless child on his own, in the North besides! How well she had turned out! How proud he must be to have such an intelligent, pretty daughter! No wonder he would not part with her. Asriel replied to the praises and solicitous attentions with immense grace, enthralling the Society members further by the father-daughter duo.

And then, Stelmaria nudged at his leg. "Asriel," she warned in a low voice, gesturing to the open door.

Marisa was standing there with her monkey daemon, white-faced, watching Lyra charm the members. She caught Asriel's gaze. For a split second her face contorted into an ugly frown, but she soon composed herself to her usual smile and struck up a conversation with one of the guests.

Against Stelmaria's advice, Asriel strode towards Marisa. He waited until there was a perfect opening in their conversation to join in.

"Good evening, Mr Sandberg," he said to Marisa’s conversation partner. Asriel nodded at Marisa. “Mrs. Coulter.”

“Lord Asriel!” Mr Sandberg replied. “Mr Coulter and I were just talking about your darling daughter”

“Yes,” Marisa said, cold as ice.

“She’s quite the intelligent child. You have raised him well, my lord,” Mr Sandberg continued. He was oblivious to the tension between Asriel and Marisa. Mr Sandberg was a New Dane, and quite old besides; he either did not know the history between Asriel and Marisa or had forgotten. 

Asriel grinned. “Yes, I am very proud of her.”

“You must have had quite the help, my lord,” Marisa said. Her face was perfectly composed, but Asriel noticed a fiery note in her tone that betrayed her true feelings. 

“My servants have been a great help, but in the North, it’s just the two of us and my manservant. We make do.”

“It must be hard to raise a child, especially a girl, in the North!” said Mr Sandberg. “How on earth did you do it, my lord?”

“It was mostly luck.” Asriel laughed. “Due to our circumstances, I had to raise her rather haphazardly. It’s a miracle she turned out as well as she is.”

“Then, have you never thought about leaving her in the care of her mother or a relative? She would be much better off raised in a stable, loving household. All that travelling and isolation can’t be good for a growing child,” Marisa said. She was cradling her golden monkey, and Asriel couldn’t help but notice her grip on his fur. 

“I thank you for your solicitous attention to my family, Mrs Coulter,” Asriel said with a sardonic smile. “But you see, I have no other choice. Her mother died and she had no relatives. Under the laws in Lapland, she would’ve been taken away and raised by strangers. I’d prefer to take her and raise her on my own than let her be subjected to such a fate.”

Mr Sandberg nodded at Asriel’s words. “That is the most correct action, in my opinion,” said he. 

He, like most men, was so easily enthralled by Asriel’s charisma.

“How noble of you, Lord Asriel.” Marisa smiled blandly. “And how fortuitous that you should discover another daughter at the same time you lost your first child in the Great Flood. I believe  _ she  _ was also named Lyra, wasn’t she?”

It was a risky move, to bring up the baby in the Great Flood. Mr Sandberg could remember and realize the baby who died was Marisa’s child too. She had to be quite desperate to even mention her name. Part of her effort to gain back the influence she lost was acting like their past did not even exist, Lyra included. 

“The Lord gave and the Lord takes away, Mrs Coulter,” Asriel said. “It is the Laplandic way to give a child a new name after they had weathered great sickness or tragedy, and I decided to rename my second daughter in honour of her late sister.”

It was a lie. Both Marisa and Asriel knew there was no such customs in Lapland. But Mr Sandberg did not. His main preoccupation was the Skraeling tribes in New Denmark, and there were several tribes who had such customs. With his limited knowledge of Laplanders, he might assume that they would have a similar tradition.

The tale with the dead baby and renaming ceremony had clinched Mr Sandberg’s support for Asriel. Asriel could see Marisa working herself up to a silent fury as Mr Sandberg went on and on about how strong Asriel to weather such tragedy, how brave he was to do such a thing, how  _ noble _ . 

Then, Mr Sandberg was called away by someone he knew and there was only Marisa and Asriel. Marisa turned away to leave, but he grabbed her arm.

“Don’t you think I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said in a low, menacing tone. Stelmaria growled at her golden monkey, teeth bared. “You will never get your hands on her.”

“She’s  _ my  _ child too.” Marisa hissed, shoving him away.

“You dare call yourself a mother after what you’ve done? I have a birth certificate signed by the King of Lapland himself and three credible witnesses that would swear on their life I’m her true father. Our child is dead. You have no right to her. She is  _ mine _ .”

Marisa glared at him with such undiluted, undisguised fury that for a moment Asriel thought she was going to slap him. But then she composed herself fairly quickly. Without saying anything further, she turned on her heels and left.

“That was bad. She might do something extreme,” Stelmaria said, growling softly. "You shouldn't have provoked her."

"She was lurking around, trying to see if she can strongarm the Magisterium into giving Lyra to her." Asriel gritted his teeth. "I need to send a message. I won't let her take her away from me."

They returned to Lyra and Pan. They stayed at the party for a while more until Asriel saw Lyra was getting sleepy.

“I en’t sleepy,” Lyra protested with a big yawn. She slept in the car on their way back, and Asriel had to carry her to her bed. 

For an unknown reason, he was compelled to linger at his daughter’s bedside. He watched Lyra’s steady breathing, Pan curled at her side. How fast time passed. He still remembered the day he brought her away, holding her for the first time. She was red and wrinkly and he remembered thinking that he couldn’t possibly love such an ugly thing. Yet he had killed for her, had lost everything because of her, and never once he regretted having her in his life.

Asriel smoothed away Lyra’s hair. She had grown so much these days. In a few years, she would be too big to be kept away. The prospect oddly rankled him. He’d like for them to continue as they were, travelling in the North without much attention from other people, her always by his side. 

No. Why was he being so maudlin for? He had some years left with her still. Asriel bent forward and kissed her forehead. Slipping away silently, he left his daughter to sleep.

━

Serafina Pekkala, the great witch queen of Lake Enara, made herself invisible and flew to a remote cabin in the Arctic. From a window, she could see a man and a little girl amongst contraptions of many kinds. The man was tinkering away and the little girl was helping him, chattering all the while. Serafina heard a rustle; one of her sisters, invisible, had also come.

“Is that the Eve?” she said, peering into the window.

“Yes, and her father,” Serafina replied. The girl’s daemon was a snow leopard cub, mirroring the man’s daemon. They sat serenely on the floor as the girl and the man worked.

“The clans said they all saw the signs; the Eve’s reckoning is at hand. Is she ready?”

“Fate comes for us all, whether we are ready or not. It is her father we must fear. He has become attached to the girl. She will have to make her own way and undergo horrible things to fulfill her destiny, and he may try to stop her.”

“But what is written in the stars cannot be stopped,” Serafina’s sister said.

“Yes,” Serafina said, “but he is a powerful man, unused to failure. Were he to understand the extent of the prophecy, he’d wage a war to stop it. We have to prepare.”

The two witches watched silently as the man laughed at something the girl said. After a while, they flew home to report to their sisters about what they had observed and warn them of the upcoming war. In the cabin, the man and the girl were working away, oblivious to the great terrible fate that await them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide!
> 
> In your letter you said you wanted to know what would it be like if Asriel took Lyra north with him. Well, I imagined something like this (although a good chunk of this fic takes place in London). Poor Thorold. 
> 
> Title taken from _Paradise Lost_
> 
> Translations (according to Google translate)  
>  _Mitä kuuluu?_ = how do you do? [Finnish]  
>  _Voin hyvin kiitos_ = I'm fine, thank you [Finnish]  
>  _Северное сияние_ = Northern Lights/Aurora Borealis [Russian]


End file.
